Over the years I´ve held courses for gardening clubs, libraries, and schools in ecology, seed saving, market gardening and vegetable and herb growing. This year Andrew Niday and I will be holding a series of curses throughout the season which can be attended by anyone interested in learning what you need to know to grow for self sufficiency, market gardens, school gardens or simply for the joy of tending a garden. The location is the gorgeous Øvre Sem Gård in Asker, on the West side of Oslo. The classes will a mixture of theory practice through participating in the gardens on the farm. Lunch is in some cases also included from the farm’s hotel restaurant.
It is possible to either sign up for individual courses or the entire 10 course series. We hold the courses in Norwegian and cover a wide range of subjects like soil health, seed saving, plant knowledge, designing gardens and all the critical factors for success.
Starting 21 March, we go through the four seasons and look at the bottlenecks, windows of opportunity, and key tips and tricks for how to successfully grow and save seeds under Nordic conditions.
We then move on to a course on sowing and pre-cultivation on the 4th April, followed by a plant biology and soil course focused on the potting up and out phase on the 7th May.
https://www.ovresem.no/activity/dyrkekurs-som-et-arshjul
25th May we focus on prepping and planning beds. We cover site analysis, disease, weeds and animal vectors, and techniques for managing these and other critical factors for a successful season.
9th June covers planting and site management techniques like surface composting, mulching, and the esthetics of a forming a stable energy capturing and entropy offsetting ecosystem. This is followed by a weeding and pest control course on the 13th June.
Then in the fall we hold a seed saving course of the eight main plant families on the 15th September which is followed by a harvesting and conservation course on the 11th and 12 October. This coincides with Kortresitfestivalen. Finally 14th November we hold a course on growing during the winter season along with other activities that are often forgotten like stratifying, preserving, seed saving etc.
For a full overview of what the course offers visit the website of Øvre Sem Gård.
https://www.ovresem.no/activity/dyrkekurs-som-et-arshjul
